The Status of Fish

[bebe]

Well said Fever. From the start Marc and I have constantly changed cards in the mix. What is so damn good about Fish is that it can adjust to the current meta with the inclusion of some cards and the exclusion of others. I don't think Psi Blasts are main decked much anymore. Maze of Ith was added to the build months ago. Stifles are now being tested.
Five Strip effects are becoming the norm for a number of aggro control decks and Fish is no exception. We used board in two strips but today they just sit main deck.

STAX wins. Why should Fish have an easy time with it. I just don't like adding red makes up the shortcomings as it can add inconsistency to a very stable deck. Energy Flux/Rack and Ruin - I can live with the Flux. Unless I'm about to face a lot of rogue aggro I would stick to mono blue ( grim lavamancers and fire/ice can be very nice additions).

[ZoneSeek]

The point about oldschool Stompy vs. Sligh was right on. As an ex-Stompy player, that matchup used to always give me giggles. I think I've determined why those "bad on paper" matchups are actually in favor of fish - we're playing blue cards.

Okay, stupid humor aside, the Stax matchup can be a very rough one - I know first hand how insane the deck can be. Still, with a good amount of playskill (and the right amount of hate) Fish can prove to be a solid threat. If you can survive the first few turns, you can start crapping out more dorks than they can handle. How do we achieve this? Null Rod, Stifle, Force of Will, Wasteland, Energy Flux and possibly Annul. That's quite a list of cards that can aid you, many showing up in multiples of four! Quite honestly, Stax can get some broken draws, but it's going to to be a rare day where you won't be able to put up a fight and at least get to two mana to resolve a Null Rod. Usually resolving a Null Rod buys you enough time to resolve an Energy Flux - and with the upped Waste count, you can keep Mishra's Workshops off the board and turn the nigh-unwinnable matchup into a onesided slaughter.

Naturally, I'm describing the ideal game plan (and not claiming Fish naturally slaughters Stax) - but if you want to win the Stax matchup, you have to have the right amount of hate, good judgment, and a bit of the old blue luck.

As for the dragon matchup - let them waste time casting Squee. I'll laugh. More than half of my threats have evasion to get around him. Yes, Dragon is fast. We still have answers to their threats - most of the aforemention cards vs. Stax are great. We have a number of significant threats - some at one mana - that Dragon has to Duress away before going off. Imagine a well-timed Stifle vs. Dragon.  

Fever - I'm glad to see you take up an interest in Fish.

[Fever]

Actually Zoneseek, i have been a fan of the deck for a while, if you remember i had a thread about it in the Vintage forum a while back. One of the main reasons i am taking an interest right now is that i am putting together a version of Fish in real life, and i plan to make a return to the tournament scene as soon as the deck is finished.

[Vegeta2711]

Whatever man, whatever. Extract is pretty bad and even your own examples are faulty. Notice how everything you named there's a back-up for in decks. Karn and Trike, Bargain and Necro, Trenches and whatever other kill condition they have. Which means yes the card is crappy unless you manage the 2-3 Extract draws a lot and assuming they have no discard at all to hit you with.

As I've stated I've been extracted multiple times while playing combo and still won. It hurts a bit, but I'm far more afraid of Stifle on my Fetchland or 1st turn Null Rod.

I don't know what you think if you think Extract is good. It's OK vs combo period. That's all. If you want a combo hoser run Arcane Lab, that has better chances of stopping me than Extract.\n\n

[ZoneSeek]

Please try to keep it clean and on topic guys. I don't want to see this thread degenerate into a flame war. If you have a point to make about either card, make it. These posts are not EVF material.

I personally believe Extract to be of rather limited use. It offers no boards position and really needs to show up in multiples to be effective.

[wuaffiliate]

i deleted the post, no point in flaming it wont help you get a clue .

the deck can beat combo with no extracts or stifles, but using both had improved the matchup.\n\n

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Gay Fish for Gencon, Friday July 25, 2003, 1st place, phantom tape worm

3 manta rider
4 cloud of faeries
4 rootwater thief
4 lord of atlantis

4 force of will
2 misdirection
4 curiosity
4 standstill
3 null rod
1 psionic blast
1 merchant scroll
1 ancestral recall
1 time walk

4 mishra's factory
4 faerie conclave
4 wasteland
1 stripmine
1 library of alexandria
1 mox sapphire
9 island


4 energy flux
4 maze of ith
2 boomerang
2 blue elemental blast
2 arcane laboratory
1 null rod

I honestly do not believe that the current build of mono blue fish is outdated at all, and if you notice the side board/maindeck you'll see that the "metagame" is well accounted for.

arcane laboratory + null rod were chosen over extract, since they are broader in their application.

blue blast was chosen as an answer to goblin welder + sligh

maze of ith was chosen for mask, but it is an amazingly versatile anti aggro card as well

energy flux was chosen as an answer specifically for stax

boomerang was selected as the catchall, it serves many subtle functions and often buys you a window of time to win

Quote In all honesty I think Fish is severly hard pressed to perform well in this current meta.   Fish has never really been a counter deck threat, in that it does pack force of wills, but doesn't have the ability to sit back and do the control thing.   That being said combo decks usually don't have to terribly much to worry about when going off against Fish, atleast not the ones that go off relatively fast.

I'm confused though.  Why is fish a poor choice for the current metagame?  It has a plethora of cards that are very strong right now against top decks, and has incredible drawing capabilities which make it one hot sexy bitch.  Also, since TnT is bad right now i just don't see this as an anti-fish metagame.  Hmmm...i could see stoopid madness giving fish problems with a particularly exposive hand, though arcane lab, maze, and boomerang should help there.


Splashing colors is certainly an option, though i am still not convinced that it is entirely worth junking up the mana base any further.  I am currently working on a red splash with a very different creature base, but until it performs IRL to my liking, i will not post it.

I'm also still not sold on stifle.  Someone please win a tournament with stifle in the deck so i can change my mind.

[ZoneSeek]

I'm going to be meeting up with Smmenen and others this weekend for some tourney style action - I'll let you know how it performs. The more I examine your deck, PTW, the more it seems sexy. I wouldn't expect anything less from one of the creators of this deck. I'm not entirely sold on Boomerang but that's because I'm not a big fan of bounce in general. I have some nice foil 7e ones on the way so I may give them a shot.

Just as a note - my purpose of the original post was to throw a bunch of sideboard ideas into the open and ask the community where Fish really stands in the current metagame. Even more than that - I really want to know, from the perspective of a Hulk or Stax player - what cards do they fear from Fish?

[SummenSaugen]

I just wanted to ask this question as I hadn't seen anyone else ask it yet...

Why the sapphire, but not the lotus?  It seems like they serve the same purpose - to poop out a bunch of early junk, possibly a null rod.  In the null rod scenerio, it's just as good as sapphire would have been.  Better in fact.  So, what gives?

It allows first turn flux too.

[ZoneSeek]

Quite honestly it's because the Lotus just doesn't stick around. I've never liked drawing it when I've tested it. Fish always wants consistant mana sources. I suppose it's becoming a little better considering the need to play hate cards earlier, but I'm not sure it's inclusion is necessary.

Even when "going off" it's not incredibly spectacular - you'll almost always want land in it's place. Sapphire sticks around, so we like him.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Quote Just as a note - my purpose of the original post was to throw a bunch of sideboard ideas into the open and ask the community where Fish really stands in the current metagame. Even more than that - I really want to know, from the perspective of a Hulk or Stax player - what cards do they fear from Fish?

Now that i am also a hulk player i can answer this question  

At the gencon championship i actually played against fish using hulk.  The early rootwater thief put the fear of god into me, at least until i drew into one of my togs...

I feared standstill more than anything, but otherwise i pretty much just ignored him and drew a bunch of cards.  The match was kind of a blow out in my favor but that may have been for a variety of reasons; me knowing his deck very well, him not knowing mine, him running a suboptimal build of fish (no conclaves, no mazes in the board, not enough wastes), me having a 14 inch penis and getting good opening draws, while i think he may have had to paris on one of our two games.

His game plan should have been: disrupt the mana base with null/waste, stop the card drawing, out draw the oponent.  If at some point rootwater thief can snag out a tog or yawgwill with no loss of tempo, go for it.
Game two the mazes come in, and this buys time, time that you can use to win, since now tog has to assemble more combo pieces in order to take you out back and shoot you in the head.

I also played against Lam Phan's landstill deck in the semi's of the $250 gencon tourney.  In the final turn of the game he had 3 mazes on the board and me at 1 life.  If he would have had more pressure on the board, in the form of say unblockable faggy beat sticks, i think he could have pulled the game.  As it stood, i had to draw all but three cards in my deck to win AND cast yawgwill, but i did pull the game.  He lost with several cards in his hand, but no threats for me to worry about in play.

He did manage to win game two against me by executing the plan i layed out for fish: disrupt the mana base, stop the draw, out draw opponent.

Standstill is a powerful engine, and it certainly rivals ak for raw drawing power.

[Azhrei]

My Hulk list boards 2 Plaguebearers for Dreadnaught... but they kinda beat up on Fish fairly well too. That's something to keep in mind-- one Plaguebearer in play and you're pretty much done for.

[ZoneSeek]

The really scary part about Plaguebearer is how he decimates our manlands. Killing off even our lowly Manta Riders costs three - and I'm not sure how scared I am of you investing 5 mana into killing one of our other threats. Still, an early active Plaguebearer can give Fish major fits. Using 5 mana every turn to win the game is appealing - but hopefully with our Wastes and Null Rods we'll keep his usage to a minimum.

Maybe we should start boarding Psychic Purges against Hulk.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Quote The really scary part about Plaguebearer is how he decimates our manlands. Killing off even our lowly Manta Riders costs three - and I'm not sure how scared I am of you investing 5 mana into killing one of our other threats. Still, an early active Plaguebearer can give Fish major fits. Using 5 mana every turn to win the game is appealing - but hopefully with our Wastes and Null Rods we'll keep his usage to a minimum.

Maybe we should start boarding Psychic Purges against Hulk.

I wouldn't bother.  Good builds of hulk that actually win IRL tournaments don't use such narrow cards as plaguebearer in the pernicious deed slot of the board.  "Plaguebearer hulk" loses to the random enchantress decks and deck parfait  

If he's got plaguebearers in the board, that's fine, deed would have been just as dangerous to you since tog can live through it against fish and you have absolutely no way of getting rid of it (well, apart from boomerang eot).  I'd focus on just shutting down his ability to draw and cast spells.  Wastelands are amazing in this matchup, and having the draw power to see them more frequently than sligh is very nice.

I thought plague bearer would be scary the first time i heard about it in certain people's boards, and to a certain extent it is.  But at the stage of the game where it can make you just lose, you'd have probably lost to the tog anyway. The good news is there's only two of them, and an early rootwater thief is as bad for him as an early plaguebearer is for you.  You have 4 thieves, he has 2 plaguebearers.

And if he does beat you with them, point your finger and laugh at him for being the only hulk deck to miss top 8 because he lost to enchantress and parfait.

[Triple_S]

PTW...why does your GenCon list Merchant Scroll but no Mystical tutor?

[Azhrei]

This is kinda off topic, but I prefer the Plaguebearers because I'll never see (snicker) Parfait after round one. They've been an absolute godsend against Dreadnaught for me, which is really the only thing I fear as a Hulk player-- all that random enchantment stuff is either way too slow or unlikely, and since Deed will kill my own Moxen it's not worth it for me to use when I can accomplish the same task with only one color mana and for as long as I can protect it.

[ZoneSeek]

The Psychic Purge bit was a joke.  

Merchant Scroll is so much better than Mystical Tutor because it doesn't cost you a turn and fetches everything but Time Walk. It's a no brainer for me because I don't yet own a Time Walk - but even without, it's so much better.

Putting a Force of Will in hand this turn is far superior to drawing it next turn. When I tutor for a card in Fish, I want it there now - I need to preserve every draw I can.

[LoA]

@PhantomTapeWorm: Has One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish changed much maindeck?  Clearly, Fish SBs are much different than they once were.

It will be interesting to see how the new set changes the meta, but Fish already seems decently geared to beat artifact and combo decks, so I expect it to remain a strong choice.  If only equipment worked with Null Rods so a Manta Rider could look scary.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

@LoA: One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish is a pernicious dude original.  That question would be better fielded by him.  

However, if what you were getting at is the latest gay fish w/red  splash decklist I used recently to win an alpha time walk, that can be found in the unreg forum under this link:

Gay red in newbie forum

Right now i'm just calling it gay red...all the fish went away



BTW, to address the original point of this thread...from what i keep reading in the tourney reports section, fish is becoming one of the more dominant decks.

It is just as i have forseen, the gay agenda in vintage is being realized

          \n\n

[pernicious dude]

One Fish, Two Fish sat in a box for many months.
I dusted it off last week.
It top 8ed Saturday in Concord and Sunday in Poughkeepsie.

Maindeck is a little different.

5 Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand/ Polluted Delta
2 Faerie Conclave
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library Of Alexandria

4 Manta Riders
4 Rootwater Thief
4 Razorfin Hunter
4 Lord Of Atlantis

4 Force Of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Stifle
3 Null Rod

4 Curiosity
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

2 Psionic Blast
2 Fire/Ice

The only non-creature spells I never sided out were Ancestral and Time Walk.
Time Walk is new for me in the deck.
It was OK. I'm not a rabid fan yet.

Sideboard was suboptimal.
Some parts were great.

3 Standstill
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Suq'Ata Firewalker
2 Fire/Ice
1 Extract
3 Maze Of Ith
1 Misdirection

Neither meta looked like Workshops,
hence the lack of Hurkyl's, Heretics or Energy Flux.

I loved the sideboarded Standstills.
Maindeck they don't cut it in the home of Brought Sui and Stoopid Madness,
especially without the Cloud Of Faeries,
but it's great to bring them in against control.

The lone Stifle was great, acting as Rod #4 and Waste #5.
Going down to 2 Psi Blast worked OK,
especially now that turn 1 Su-Chi isn't so common.

Friday I tried 4 BEB, no Firewalkers, and Mountains creamed me.
Saturday the Firewalkers owned.
They're never leaving again.

The lack of Disk anywhere hurt.
Argothian/Worship shot me down Sunday.
I think they're replacing BEB #3 and the Extract.

Looking forward to Mirrodin.

[ZoneSeek]

I would like to thank everyone for the great discussions in this post. My questions I believe have been answered, as I have been hearing of tournament wins across the country with our beloved deck. Fish has proven itself to be incredibly solid and versatile even in the face of this ridiculous metagame.

I hope you have found this thread to be informative, and keep winning with those fishies.

Self-moderation black says: Thread, be closed!\n\n